Russian Standard
by rainbow.hatgirl
Summary: He refused to be categorized, and that fact made Natasha Romanoff think she should try another line of work. It irritated her to no end. This story contains spoilers.
1. Known Things

She'd been on the live end of a weapon too many times to count. Bows and arrows, knives, guns, fists and the occasional medieval pike all blurred together.

Her recollection of her kill count was perfect, however, etched in her mind like a scar. Over the years, practice and a few close encounters had perfected her technique - she had knives and her Widows' bite at her disposal, of course, but Natasha Romanoff preferred guns.

Guns could be used for a shot of precision, or the spray-and-pray usually adopted by the army. Natasha liked a single shot better; less of a mess with only one bullet casing clinking its' way to the floor by her feet.

Guns were better, because unlike knives, you didn't need to feel your target die. She was all about precision, a sense of control, and they gave her that like nothing else could. There were too many variables otherwise.

Clint enjoyed his bow despite the countless issues that Natasha had with that kind of weapon, and he hadn't hesitated to call her approach to eliminating a target "lazy" in one of their many arguments. Despite all of this, Natasha had helped him develop better arrows, fletchings and recurves that wouldn't snap off in the heat of a battle, because neither of them knew how many times they'd find themselves in the middle of one. She had a ledger to wipe clean, after all, and she rationalized that helping with the tech in her own way would ease her debt to him.

Like his weapon of choice, Clint Barton had been a variable of his own in the first months and years that they'd known each other. Weapons and objects were easier to deal with than people; they had a limited number of variants and could usually be traced back to a factory or place within an hour or so.

People, however, were less reliable. But after years of training and fighting alongside Clint, she allowed herself to place him under the "known" category. She knew what he liked to eat, depending on the day. She knew his favourite places were high up and usually padded with cushions he'd stolen from Tony Stark's many couches.

Even Fury and Steve were becoming more predictable. Natasha knew she'd never entirely trust Fury; he had allowed her into SHIELD and given her a place to stay, but he was still an authority figure and she had issues with those.

Steve, however, was becoming a fast friend. He was a boy scout in all the senses of the word. He was slowly losing his rose-coloured glasses, but he was honest, optimistic and had proved time and time again to be her conscience. He had her back.

Among all these people, there was one person who was a constant thorn in her side. Any other problem like this, Natasha had analyzed and broken down like an old cardboard box. It was effective and efficient and suited her just fine.

The Winter Soldier refused to be analyzed.

It infuriated her to no end.


	2. Conditioning

Natasha was seething. The man formerly known as James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes had shot her, shot Fury, tried to eliminate his best friend, and was now inside Stark tower since all the high level prison cells had been destroyed in the collapse of SHIELD. There were countless other crimes involving the Winter Soldier, but they weren't important to her. She had her own missions.

This was her space, filled with people she understood and was beginning to like and now there was a damned black fly in the middle of it. Well, she was a spider for a reason and hopefully all it would take would be some well-timed tugs of strings to get the soldier moved somewhere else.

It was a terrible idea to have them all living in the same building. Eventually tempers would rise and spill over and they needed a team without any loose ends around. While they were all under the same roof, they were all easy targets for anyone who wanted to pick off the people who had brought SHIELD down, and what better way to complete that mission than by using the wild card in their midst?

She knew Fury felt the same: after all, the discovery of HYDRA's existence had turned very personal for him and he had had to fake his own death, concealing the truth from everyone but the people closest to him. Having the Soldier in close quarters continued the personal feelings for the one-eyed director.

Natasha wanted to be angry with Steve, but the look on his face as he'd all but dragged the Soldiers' body over the doorstep had stopped her cold. Steve thought the Soldier would always have his back, but now that the mutual protection was gone, he felt lost.

Natasha didn't see Steve for three days after that, but when he showed up in the doorway of his rooms, pale and with deep circles under his eyes, she knew that Fury would eventually knuckle down under the boy scout's pleas for his friend.

She saw the Soldier around, of course; it was impossible to live in such close quarters and be completely separated, although Clint did a pretty damn good job when he wanted some time alone.

He had a constant expression of slight confusion on his face whenever she saw him, like he couldn't quite figure out why he was there or why Steve was being kind to him. The first time she heard him speak was when a man in a suit and a SHIELD pin entered the common area in Stark tower.

Bucky became the Winter Soldier again, the confusion replaced on his face with the hard stare of a mercenary. His voice had been soft, at complete odds with his appearance. "The Asset is due for a mission report, sir."

Steve had frozen beside his friend, looking between the two men with a growing expression of anger on his face. "Bucky?"

Bucky hadn't moved, hadn't even turned an inch away from the grim agent. "The Asset is due for a mission report."

Steve figured it out a second after she did, dragging the Soldier out of the room just as the agent pulled a gun out of his jacket and fired, missing them both by an inch. He turned and tried to fire on her as well, but by then it was too late and her hands and legs had already closed around his head and neck and twisted.

His clothes - well made, standard business attire - revealed more information, adding to the data she had already compiled from the exchange between the Soldier and the man, who hadn't bothered to conceal his employment at HYDRA very well. Turn the SHIELD pin over and there it was, the skull and tentacles. Natasha tucked that and the man's wallet away for safekeeping. The pin she would show to both Steve and Fury, but the wallet and its' contents would buy her a new jacket to replace the one she'd lost when fighting for her life, and that didn't happen often.

Natasha didn't entirely know what to make of the fact that the Soldier had come a lot closer to making her another notch in his "target acquired" list. It was unnerving, of course: no one had come that close to erasing her life, except for Clint, and he had decided to spare it against SHIELD'S orders. Natasha knew that HYDRA was not so lenient, no matter the target's skill set.

A target was a target, and the Soldier had been very good at his job.

She was also, somehow, excited. He was a challenge, a worthy opponent and part of her wanted to just fight it out, no weapons or outside variables. She wanted to be a challenge for him as well: not because she wanted to prove her worth to him in any way, but because she knew that he must be bored as well. Being the best in your field was monotonous after a while.

But not yet. Natasha had been heavily conditioned in the past, same as him, and it had taken her a lot longer than was personally acceptable to clear her head of the KGB's influence. It had taken over every part of her behaviour and she had only been trained for less than half of the time that the Soldier had been active. If she tried now, her physical outcome might be less than positive.

Steve would want her to wait for Bucky's state of mind to improve first before she had at him in any way. Natasha could be patient if she needed to be, especially when it came to Steve. He considered her a friend, and actually trusted her to have his back if it came to that point. Some small part of her told her that she should be flattered at his trust: after all, he knew her case file just as well as Clint did.

That night was not a quiet one; Natasha fought for sleep but hoarse screams in Russian and English and other languages from the floor below kept her awake. When Steve appeared at her door early the next morning, with black circles under his eyes and a bleeding hand, Natasha knew her closure was not going to come any time soon.


	3. Outward Bound

In the end, the decision was made to move the Soldier to a safehouse.

Steve had protested throughout the entire discussion - what if something went wrong - but Natasha sided with Fury over the fact that several things already had gone wrong, and to continue like this was not something of benefit for anyone involved. Steve was compromised by the very presence of the Soldier, and every time Natasha opened her door to find Captain America with a fresh gash or other injury, she knew the time for his former best friend was quickly coming to an end.

Cuts and bruises were something the team could handle easily, and Natasha knew that Steve had sustained more than his fair share from the Soldier. Those things weren't exactly beneficial to morale, but they were manageable and would fade over time.

HYDRA and their weapons, however, were another story. It was a thorn in her side, how slowly the remaining members of SHIELD were moving to any sort of action. Decisions were fine, but after they were made, Natasha's perspective was that the actual doing something should follow almost immediately after.

The agent that had attempted to eliminate both Steve and the Soldier had been a clear warning to the team; HYDRA knew the Soldier's location and would eventually come to collect what they felt was theirs.

The level of conditioning that had been ingrained into the Soldier's mind wasn't improving the situation, either; any words that sounded vaguely like an order would cause him to snap back from any progress and become a blank slate again. Even mundane things like the pop of the toaster or the faint hum and buzz coming from the lab would have the Soldier flinch and revert to his old ways.

Steve and Natasha were voted as escorts to bring him to the safehouse and stay there with him until the immediate threat had passed. The morning of their departure was the toughest one yet; neither of them had been able to sleep and the situation was becoming more and more tense. The Soldier's screaming had increased to a new level during the night and Natasha had honestly considered shooting through the floor so she could have some peace.

Against Steve's wishes, Natasha did the same thing to the Soldier that she had done to Clint; just a bit of cognitive recalibration to keep him subdued during the trip. He'd refused any needles and had become a wild thing whenever the subject came up.

As much as she knew that splitting the group apart was a risky thing to do, Natasha hoped that - for Steve's sake, at least - there would be some benefits to outweigh the dangers.


End file.
